It was a kind of reversal of gazing at the stars. On Christmas Eve 1968, the astronauts of Apollo 8—Frank Bormann, Bill Anders, and James Lovell, Jr.—were busy scouting landing spots on the surface of the moon for a future mission when they suddenly witnessed a spectacular moment: over the ash-colored lunar mountains, against the black backdrop of space, they saw the Earth rising like a shining, blue marble. As one writer put it,
Major Anders had the job of photographing the lunar landscape. When Earth rose, a robot would have kept on clicking off pictures of the craters. Indeed the astronauts briefly joked about whether they should break off and aim their cameras up. “Hey don’t take that, it’s not scheduled,” Commander Borman said. Then, like good humans, they grabbed cameras and clicked away.
“Earthrise” became an iconic image, something of an epiphany: Sent to examine the Moon, Major Anders later said, humans instead discovered Earth. Apollo 8’s greatest legacy turned out to be a single photograph of home, glorious and beautiful, “fragile and miraculous as a soap bubble.”[1] Over fifty years later, we know a lot more about just how fragile our planet is, and we’re still far from knowing how to be at home here, together.
Matthew tells us that in the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem. We don’t know much about them, these sky-gazing travelers from far away lands who came to Jerusalem guided by a star to pay homage to the newborn king of the Jews. And because we know almost nothing about them, we have long let our imaginations soar.
Matthew gave us an almost blank canvas, and we have gladly filled it with rich, colorful detail. First we looked at the map, and we started listing all the lands East of Jerusalem—Arabia, Babylon, Persia, India, China—from how far East did they come, these wise ones? Then we looked at the gifts they brought—gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Very expensive gifts, not the kind of stuff you can pick up at the corner market on your way to the birthday party—but hadn’t Isaiah mentioned gold and frankincense, and hadn’t he written about kings? That was when, in our imagination, they began to look like kings, royal visitors bearing royal gifts, and because three gifts are mentioned, we determined that there must have been three of them. And so we began singing songs like We Three Kings From Orient Are, but our hunger for detail wasn’t satisfied yet. How did they get from the East to Jerusalem? Certainly they did not walk all the way — but wait, hadn’t Isaiah mentioned a multitude of camels? Sometime in the Middle Ages, we named the three Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, and we saw them riding high on their camels, with more camels carrying their treasure chests.
With passing centuries, the stories of the wise men from the East became ever more colorful and elaborate — and all because of the child whose star they had observed and followed. This child arouses in us a holy extravagance of story, image, song, and gift, because in this baby and the man he became, we see the face of God. The nations are coming to the light that has dawned, and in Mathew’s story, these travelers from the East represent all of the nations, they are the first in a long procession—we come from Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, and the Americas, we all come: the whole world is gathering to pay homage to the newborn king. Matthew gives us but a hint or two, and we let our imagination run, because this child is the good king, born to bring us all together in the city of God, born to show us how to be at home, together.
What about the other king? Imagine King Herod’s face when his staff informed him that visitors of considerable wealth and status were entering the city. He was very fond of hearing his underlings refer to him as Herod the Great, but imagine the satisfaction in his eyes, imagine the regal pace with which he made his way to the palace window to see his own majesty and greatness reflected in the very important visitors from far away. They had come from distant lands to meet him and, no doubt, pay him homage, to admire the magnificent building projects under way in the city, especially the temple—he was Herod the Great, King of the Jews, the most important person in the realm, was he not? Then the foreign visitors entered and asked him where they might find the newborn king of the Jews—imagine his face now.
We hang a star in the baptistry window during Advent and Christmas. It’s beautiful, especially when it gets to shine in the darkness. You can’t miss it when you come into the sanctuary at night. It’s supposed to stand out. We hang it in the window to focus our attention on the one who was born under its light. It’s like the ancient version of a pin dropped on the map of the sky to mark our destination.
In Matthew’s story, only the stargazers from the East notice the one star among the countless others visible on a clear night. Herod doesn’t see what they see; nor do the scribes and scholars whom he consults. They talk about Bethlehem, but they can’t see the star, they can’t see the house, they can’t see God’s presence in this child, Emmanuel, God with us. Epiphany means manifestation, appearance, showing forth — but Matthew wants us to see how God slips into the world by way of a poor family in a one-light town.
“Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” Matthew knows the words from Isaiah by heart, and he wants us to see that the glory of God has risen, but not upon Herod’s palace or his spectacular temple, but a little ways to the south, upon a dusty hill town called Bethlehem. “Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn,” the prophet declared, and Matthew shows us the nations coming to the light. “They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord” — and they do, but all Herod can see is a threat to his own reign. And as they get to represent the nations of the world, drawn to the light of Christ, Herod gets to represent the kings who aren’t exactly drawn to this light, but rather alarmed by it—we hear echoes of Pharaoh in the story, echoes of powerful men who have no use for a glory they cannot grab to polish their own. As Rome’s puppet king and client of the emperor, Herod’s task was to foster loyalty to Rome. He presided over a political system that benefited a small elite while depriving many of their daily bread. Describing Herod’s cruelty, the Roman writer Macrobius penned the memorable line that it was “better to be Herod’s pig than his wife or son.”[2] He was used to getting rid of people who didn’t serve his ambition. He had ten wives and ordered multiple assassinations, including the murder of some of his own sons to make sure the one of his choosing would take his throne when he died. No epiphany for Herod, no star-light, only fear and cunning and ruthless determination.
So Matthew’s story really is not about three kings, but about two, Herod and Jesus. The contrast between their kingdoms runs through the whole gospel, and through the long history of the kingdom of God disrupting our dreams of empire, and all the way to this moment and to us: do we see the glory of the Lord that has risen upon us? Do we see the the glory of God in the face of Mary’s boy, and do we let him dismantle our stubborn dreams of empire, or do we put the vision away together with the star and the rest of the Christmas decorations?
The background against which Isaiah calls the city to arise and shine, is ancient and disturbingly familiar: “Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands at a distance; for truth stumbles in the public square, and uprightness cannot enter.”[3] Truth stumbles in the public square – I can’t think of a better line to describe the web of lies that’s strangling our public discourse in the name of power.
[Woe to] you who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!
[Woe to] you who are wise in your own eyes,
and shrewd in your own sight!
[Woe to] you who are heroes in drinking wine
and valiant at mixing drink,
who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
and deprive the innocent of their rights![4]
Isaiah knows our corruptions. Isaiah knows we have become experts at Herod’s game, whether we have power, privilege and prestige or seek them. Isaiah’s own vision is not immune to the temptations of empire. Walter Brueggemann writes,
In the past, Jerusalem has been subordinate to the nations. [But now] we are about to witness a great inversion… When Jerusalem looks around, what it sees is a great caravan of the nations, all coming to the recovering city. The nations have heavy cargo for Jerusalem… We are not told if they bring [tribute] gladly or under coercion. What matters is that … for as long as anyone can remember, Israel had paid imperial tribute to other nations — the Assyrians, the Babyonians, the Persians — all money going out. Now the process is reversed.[5]
Now the process is reversed, but the great reversal doesn’t change the underlying logic of domination and exploitation. “In its worst moments,” writes Michael Chan, “this [passage from Isaiah] is a revenge fantasy that longs for one’s oppressors to be the oppressed, for the masters to be the servants, and for the system of economic oppression to be tilted in favor of the victims.”[6] Reversal is not enough when justice is at stake. It’s like we need to remember Isaiah against Isaiah’s own imperial dreams; Isaiah who gave voice to God’s promise that they will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. [7]
That is why we go to Bethlehem to greet the new-born king. That is why we worship him and not our own twisted fantasies of domination. For our own sake and for the sake of the earth, fragile and miraculous as a soap bubble, and soon, we pray, full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/21/science/earthrise-moon-apollo-nasa.html
[2] Warren Carter, “Between text and sermon: Matthew 2:1-12,” Interpretation 67, no. 1 (January 2013), 64-65.
[3] Isaiah 59:14
[4] Isaiah 5:20-23
[5] Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah 40-66 (Louisville: Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, 1998), 204-05.
[6] Michael Chan https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/epiphany-of-our-lord/commentary-on-isaiah-601-6-3
[7] Isaiah 11:9